If
you’re handling private data in your organization, then you’re obliged to
establish security systems to protect its misuse. To achieve this, you should
conduct an elaborate risk assessment process to identify and analyze the
potential risks to the data.
This process is a crucial ingredient in enhancing your cybersecurity since it enables you to rank and prioritize the risks. This way, you’re able to eliminate the threats based on their possibility of occurrence and the potential damage that they would cause to your organization.
This
article will guide you on how you can use your risk assessment process to
establish a secure cybersecurity system that will pass all the regulatory
requirements.
The Process of
Cybersecurity Risk Assessment
Use a Targeted
Approach
You
should never make the mistake of thinking that you can conduct a risk
assessment
without a well-thought-out plan. If you attempt this, you’re likely to have
sketchy cybersecurity strategies that will not offer the desired data security.
While
it’s fathomable that you’d like to protect everything within the institution,
it’s necessary that you prioritize them and only start with the most vulnerable
sections. After you have a clear plan, ensure that you obtain all the
regulatory guidelines since they contain in-depth insights on loopholes that
cybercriminals explore when trying to access your data.
Make sure that you only start with the most relevant section based on the needs of your industry. For example, an organization that deals with payments may have crucial cardholder details. Such a company would prioritize compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). On the other hand, a health facility should first follow the guidelines of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Adopt a
Multi-Agency Approach/ Assessment Team
After
you’ve identified your cybersecurity threats, you need to rank them based on
the likelihood of occurrence and the severity of the consequences that would
befall your organization in case they occur.
While
you may be interested in handling this step independently, you may lack the
expertise that’s required to gauge the magnitude of the threats. If that’s the
case, you should never hesitate to engage professionals within your
organization. This will ensure that you get accurate data that will
translate into a highly effective cybersecurity system.
However, you should be careful when engaging people from the outside of your organization since they can misuse the data! If you must do that, then use vendor assessment tools to evaluate their data protection ability before you hire them.
Create an Effective
Risk Treatment Program
Once you’ve assessed and ranked the cybersecurity threats that affect your organization, it’s time to formulate techniques that will help you mitigate the risks. You may consider using the following:
1- Use a Tracking Tool: This is an automated tool that will help you to monitor the daily operations of your business closely. Your IT team will help in coding the necessary keys that will help it identify unusual activities in your organization. The tool will generate a report periodically for your assessment. If/when you identify anything weird, you should invoke other mitigation measures immediately before the problem wreaks havoc.
2- Modify Your Working Tools: Depending on the nature of the threats, you can modify your equipment to detect unusual logins, unauthorized sharing of data, or any other attempt to access protected data.
3- Develop a Code of Ethics: You should ensure that all your employees adhere to security measures that you’ve instituted. Anyone unwilling to comply should never be tolerated!
All
your systems should be modified to ensure that they block any attempt to
compromise your data security.
Invest in Staff
Training
While
risk assessment is crucial, it loses its value if the implementation is
inadequate. To achieve a flawless implementation process, you should train all
your staff on all the mitigation measures you’ve adopted.
Let
them appreciate the needs to adopt the measures. When at it, you should address
all their concerns and questions which will reduce the friction that may arise
between the employees and the management. If all the stakeholders agree, you
can be confident that the implementation process will be superb!
Evaluate and Review
Your Data Security Programs
Risks
are never static! When you successfully eliminate one cybersecurity threat, the
cybercriminals will work to develop an alternative to compromising your data.
As such, you should regularly monitor the system to help you detect loopholes
and to improve on them immediately.
The
consistent evaluation can be overwhelming, which makes it necessary to
incorporate automated tools which generate recommendations to better your
security systems. Also, ensure that you regularly engage both internal and
external auditors to determine the efficiency of your security systems.
Conclusion
Risk
assessment is one of the surest methods that you can use to enhance your
organization’s cybersecurity. However, its success depends on how well you
conduct the evaluation. You should develop quality recommendations that will
block any unauthorized attempt to access private data from your organization
and leverage a variety of software that helps you meet this need.
